The Painter From Shanghai is Jennifer Cody Epstein’s first novel. This Historical Fiction is based on the life of Pan Yuliang, a 20th century, post impressionalist painter. After Pan’s parents died, she was sold by her uncle to a brothel where she eventually met Pan Zanhua, a wealthy official who bought Pan her freedom and took her as his second wife. Pan began to paint,eventually studied painting in Paris and became one of the first modern painters in China. Her nude paintings were both shocking and controversial.